2020 Post #13 -- Shel Silverstein and Poetic Nostalgia

by Matthew Johnson

Three years ago, in an attempt to get students excited about an upcoming poetry unit, I asked them to bring in their favorite poems. I expected that most would bring in favorite songs or little poems that had grabbed them along the way, but instead nearly 30 of my 60 ninth graders independently brought in a poem by Shel Silverstein. Volumes of Where the Sidewalk Ends populated my desks, and while I have my own fondness for Shel Silverstein, I was at first deeply annoyed by this. Bringing him in felt like a mockery of the class and the assignment. Obviously, “Peanut Butter Sandwich” has no place in a high school–or so it seemed to me at the time.

I was stuck though, so I begrudgingly let each student talk about his/her/their favorite poet, and as I listened to them, it quickly became clear that the vast majority of students who brought in Shel Silverstein weren’t trying to be funny or to make a snarky statement about the class. They brought in his poems because reading them was the last time that they truly connected with poetry or felt that it wasn’t over their heads.

This day was a revelation for me. Up until that point I’d been the sole selector of poems in my classroom, and while the poems I selected undoubtedly worked for some students, I’m sure others didn’t connect with them as much as I’d like. But by asking students to help me supply poems, I could broaden the reach of the class and form interesting and novel bridges between what the students already love and the curriculum.

Take for example the Shel Silverstein poem “Whatif,” which several students identified as their favorite. I decided to use this poem to discuss how poets use rhyme and repetition in the next class, and I have never seen so many students so quickly identify nuanced craft moves around rhyme and rhythm, moves like the purposeful capitalization of Whatifs to emphasizing their bigness or that Silverstein uses an AABB rhyme scheme in the vein of a nursery rhyme until the line “Whatif they start a war?/Whatif my parents get divorce?”–potentially showing the narrator’s fear of her family falling apart. Further, and even more amazing was that every single student–even those who’d told me they didn’t like poetry–leaned forward, amazed to see me taking this suggestion from one of their childhoods so seriously on the board in a high school class.

So this National Poetry Month, definitely share your favorite poems with students, but when trying to plan poems that will excite and engage students, don’t forget about the best co-conspirators possible: the students themselves!

Further Reading: 

Matthew Johnson is an English teacher from Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is also a husband and father, and over the last decade he has read, thought, and written about how teachers can balance teaching with all of the other important roles they play in their lives. His work has been published by Principal Leadership, Edutopia, ASCD, The National Writing Project, and the National Council of Teachers of English, and his weekly thoughts on how to be a better teacher of writing in less time can be found on his website www.matthewmjohnson.com. When not teaching, reading, or writing, he can often be found in the kitchen, his garden, or out on a run through the gently rolling hills of Southeast Michigan.

2020 Post #8 -- If

by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

Sometimes the most difficult part of writing is revising. Sometimes the most difficult part of writing is feeling brave enough to share one’s own words with another. And sometimes the most difficult part of writing is getting started.

Try beginning a poem draft with one word -- the word "if." For when these two letters combine in this order -- i and then f -- worlds shift and change. We can lead with an if tied to a wonder...or an if clinging to a hope. We can write about our lived lives or imagined worlds. We can write about history or about today or about a future near or far from now. We can write about serious subjects and about lighthearted subjects. An if poem can include one if or many.


If you and I had never met…

If my mother was a koala bear…

If he found a rock and if the rock could talk…

If forgiveness was easy...

If someday our grandchildren live on the moon…

If you helped build the pyramids…


Starting a draft with this wee word, we can then choose to write in the first person (I or we), the second person (you), or the third person (he/she/they). Each choice matters.

The first three stanzas of Truth - from my newest book, WRITE! WRITE! WRITE!, beautifully illustrated by Ryan O’Rourke - leads with "if."

From Write, Write, Write! by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, 2020, linked below. 

In my poem Like Windowpanes, I use the word only once, to invite a reader in.

In his famous poem titled "If," Rudyard Kipling repeats this gem of a word again and again, each time layering its meaning with more love and possibility, as the kinetic typography video below demonstrates well:

Read the whole poem HERE

It can be lovely to be handed a beginning. “Start here,” a friend says. And somehow, with a trusted soul holding this literary door for us, we do.

Further Reading: 

Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is author of several books for children including FOREST HAS A SONG, EVERY DAY BIRDS, READ! READ! READ!, DREAMING OF YOU, WITH MY HANDS: POEMS ABOUT MAKING THINGS, and her most recent WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! She is also author of the professional book POEMS ARE TEACHERS: HOW STUDYING POETRY STRENGTHENS WRITING IN ALL GENRES. Amy lives in an old farmhouse in Western New York, and blogs poetry and lessons at www.poemfarm.amylv.com.



P. S.
A GIVEAWAY!
Boyds Mills & Kane will generously offer a copy of Write, Write, Write! to a commenter on this post. Be sure to include your Twitter handle or email address so that Brett can contact you. Winner announced 3/24/20 on Twitter. 

2019 Post #30 -- The Poetry of Prose

by Travis Crowder

One of the beautiful things about poetry is that is touches all other genres. Poetry dwells within prose, both fiction and nonfiction, sometimes subtle and other times striking, but always trying to nudge us past the ostensible. Authors use poetic language to move their writing and to help us see the world through their eyes. Words, the molecules of ideas, envelope us, nudging us to think deeply about their function. Sometimes they seem to rest in the palm of an open hand, inviting us to use and to lean on them, to pull them into our own way of writing and speaking. This part of author’s craft is majestic, and I love introducing students to how authors use words to convey meaning.

Just a few days ago, conversations about author’s craft centered around the use of short sentences in prose. I mentioned to students how powerful short sentences could be, but like many things in reading and writing, showing works better than telling. During independent reading, I asked them to collect short sentences (usually 1-4 words) form their books on sticky notes. I came to class with my own collection of short sentences from my book, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, pictured here:





Under the document camera, I began arranging the sentences into the form of a poem, paying attention to the meanings of lines, of how fractured sentences could be fused into new ones, of how meaning changes when lines are extracted from context and blended with something else. As I arranged the sentences, I thought aloud, telling students that adding or removing words from the original sentences was acceptable.

After a few minutes of crafting in front of them, I invited them to do the same. Students worked for about ten minutes with the sentences from their independent reading. During this time, I asked them to mold them into the shape and feel of a poem, read it aloud to themselves, then revise their original poem by swapping lines, interspersing their own lines of original thought, isolating words on a single line to draw attention to them, and so on.

After collecting short sentences from Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow, Levi wrote:

I am alone.

In the house.

I let them pull me in.

Deep down.

Black as night.

Nothing in my mind.

I turn it off.

I stare at the computer.

Years goes by.

But I am not.

....... died.

In my mind.

I feel free.

But in my heart.

I am gone

The arrangement of sentences—filled with haunting lyricism—mesmerized me and his other readers.

Brittany, while reading Flawed by Cecilia Ahern, found this poem of sentences:

A light goes on for me.

I have people.

My hearing is this afternoon.

She makes a face.

I smile at her in thanks.

And then we are inside.

He tips his hat.

¨Do you agree?¨

I silently fume, then think hard.

¨Absolutely.¨

The room erupts.

I jump up.

I pass out.

The blend of dialogue gives her poem a different edge. Characters’ names were in the original version, but I encouraged her to remove them so the reader could create the voices and names. 

Finally, students shared their poems with a classmate and posted it on a class Padlet. I also shared mine.

Grief was different.

an ocean of dark

I could not read.

I had resisted,

but soon said yes,

and felt the rush

of numbing waves.

Grief has no distance

until the morning,

when streams of light

streak the sky.

Stretching Their Thinking

Creativity exploded with this activity. I wanted students to deepen their awareness of the utility of short sentences while also appreciating author’s craft. After students posted their poems on the Padlet, I gave them time to read their classmates’ poems, identifying the one they were drawn to the most. Inside their notebooks, they copied the poem and wrote their why: What caused them to choose this poem? What word or line stands out the most to them? How does this poem make you feel? Time was provided to share poems that resonated and to celebrate their craft.
I asked students to tell me how their thinking had changed about short sentences. They answered, “We had no idea short sentences could be so powerful.”

And now, they have beautiful poems and a method of reflection that they can return to again and again.

Further Reading:

Travis Crowder is a 7th grade ELA teacher in Hiddenite, NC, teaching ten years in both middle and high school settings. His main goal is to inspire a passion for reading and writing in students. You can follow his work on Twitter (@teachermantrav) and his blog: www.teachermantrav.com/blog.

2019 Post #25 -- Make Your Peace

by Brett Vogelsinger

Anna Grossnickle Hines is a poet who brings a beautiful blend of poetry and quilting expertise to her books for children.  Since I am a poetry enthusiast, and my wife is a professional embroidery artist, we were thrilled to discover her picture books this year!

Her 2011 picture book, Peaceful Pieces, contains a poem that will speak to younger and older writers alike.  It is called "Peace: A Recipe," and the picture under the poem shows how the quilting complements the words.


Peace: A Recipe

Open minds -- at least two.
Willing hearts -- the same.
Rinse well with compassion.
Stir in a fair amount of trust.
Season with forgiveness.
Simmer in a sauce of respect.
A dash of humor brightens the flavor.

Best served with hope.

Click to Enlarge!

After reading the poem twice aloud in my classroom -- first a teacher reading, then a student read aloud -- I ask my students to think of someone that they need to make greater peace with in their own lives.  I invite them to ponder: which of the "ingredients" in this poem could help lead to greater peace.  In their Writer's Notebooks, write for a few minutes about what action they could take using this "ingredient" to create greater peace in their relationship.

This activity welcomes students to see poetry not just as literature or a collection of images or a weaving of words.  Of course, it is all these things.  But it can also be a motivator, a catalyst for change, an invitation to an epiphany.

As teachers, we cannot manufacture epiphanies.  But we can give students the chance to take a message from a poem and look for ways to apply it in their lives.  This deceptively simple poem may give them just such a chance.

Further Reading:

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher at Holicong Middle School in Bucks County, PA.  He has been starting class with a poem each day for the past ten years. He is the creator of the Go Poems blog and the author of Poetry Pauses: Teaching With Poems to Elevate Writing in All Genres.   Find him on Twitter @theVogelman.

2019 Post #11-- A Stack of Similes

by Michael Salinger and Sara Holbrook


EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve been a longtime fan of Michael and Sara’s work, and I am thrilled to present a poem they have written (based on an experience in Ghana!) and a lesson plan from their latest professional book, From Striving to Thriving: Strategies to Jump-start Writing, which I highly recommend. Enjoy! -- Brett

© 2019 Scott Pickering, Dreaming BIG and Small, Steamline Press.

Bats!

Nocturnal
as a lightning bug.
Hanging like a tree fruit.
Beeping like a
smoke detector
Fuzzy as a hamster.
Face like a freeze-dried dog.
Tracking like a sonar.
Flapping like a novice in the deep end.
Megabat is me.

© 2019 Sara Holbrook and Michael Salinger, Dreaming BIG and Small, Streamline Press. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

First, read poem "Bats!" and note it’s made up of a stack of similes, plus a last line that identifies the theme of the poem. Together, co-construct a list of action verbs to describe your classroom. Ask: What do you do (seventh) graders? Answers may include: read, text, chat, watch, dribble, run, laze, eat, etc.

Begin your co-construct by stating a theme: something like Room 206 is us, or eighth grader is me. Turn your action verbs into similes, adhering to the theme.

Label this Version 1. Remind writers that poets tell the truth; however, we also want to be a bit surprising. If a cliché turns up in the Version 1, indicate that we will want to revise that in Version 2.
Next, ask students to come up with a theme for their own writing: Creative is me, an athlete is me, funny is me, etc.

Students can divide their papers like so for a pre-write: 

Ask students to first make a list of actions that pertain to their theme. Invite writers to make a stack of similes from their action verbs. Remind students to try and be surprising. "Fast as a cheetah," may be okay for Version 1, but we will want to be more original in our next version!

Ask students to transition to an electronic device or their writer’s notebooks to rearrange their simile stack into a poem.

© 2018 Sara Holbrook and Michael Salinger, From Striving to Thriving Writers, Strategies to Jump-start Writing, Scholastic.

Further Reading:

Learn more about Sara and Michael's work at www.saraholbrook.com and www.outspokenlit.com.